The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family Part 26

I saw by the Colonel's grave kind face that these hard opinions did not suit him. "At all events, sir, promise us," we said, "that you will pay nothing yourself--that you won't see Honeyman's creditors, and let people, who know the world better, deal with him." "Know the world, young man!" cries Newcome; "I should think if I don't know the world at my age, I never shall." And if he had lived to be as old as Jahaleel, a boy could still have cheated him.

"I do not scruple to tell you," he said, after a pause during which a plenty of smoke was delivered from the council of three, "that I have--a fund--which I had set aside for mere purposes of pleasure, I give you my word, and a part of which I shall think it my duty to devote to poor Honeyman's distresses. The fund is not large. The money was intended, in fact:--however, there it is. If Pendennis will go round to these tradesmen, and make some composition with them, as their prices have been no doubt enormously exaggerated, I see no harm. Besides the tradesfolk, there is good Mrs. Ridley and Mr. Sherrick--we must see them; and, if we can, set this luckless Charles again on his legs. We have read of other prodigals who were kindly treated; and we may have debts of our own to forgive, boys."

Into Mr. Sherrick's account we had no need to enter. That gentleman had acted with perfect fairness by Honeyman. He laughingly said to us, "You don't imagine I would lend that chap a shilling without security? I will give him fifty or a hundred. Here's one of his notes, with What-do-you-call-'ems--that rum fellow Bayham's name as drawer. A nice pair, ain't they? Pooh! I shall never touch 'em. I lent some money on the shop overhead," says Sherrick, pointing to the ceiling (we were in his counting-house in the cellar of Lady Whittlesea's Chapel), "because I thought it was a good speculation. And so it was at first. The people liked Honeyman. All the n.o.bs came to hear him. Now the speculation ain't so good. He's used up. A chap can't be expected to last for ever. When I first engaged Mademoiselle Bravura at my theatre, you couldn't get a place for three weeks together. The next year she didn't draw twenty pounds a week. So it was with Pottle and the regular drama humbug. At first it was all very well. Good business, good houses, our immortal bard, and that sort of game. They engaged the tigers and the French riding people over the way; and there was Pottle bellowing away in my place to the orchestra and the orders. It's all a speculation. I've speculated in about pretty much everything that's going: in theatres, in joint-stock jobs, in building-ground, in bills, in gas and insurance companies, and in this chapel. Poor old Honeyman! I won't hurt him.

About that other chap I put in to do the first business--that red-haired chap, Rawkins--I think I was wrong. I think he injured the property.

But I don't know everything, you know. I wasn't bred to know about parsons--quite the reverse. I thought, when I heard Rawkins at Hampstead, he was just the thing. I used to go about, sir, just as I did to the provinces, when I had the theatre--Camberwell, Islington, Kennington, Clapton, all about, and hear the young chaps. Have a gla.s.s of sherry; and here's better luck to Honeyman. As for that Colonel, he's a trump, sir! I never see such a man. I have to deal with such a precious lot of rogues, in the City and out of it, among the swells and all, you know, that to see such a fellow refreshes me; and I'd do anything for him. You've made a good thing of that Pall Mall Gazette! I tried papers too; but mine didn't do. I don't know why. I tried a Tory one, moderate Liberal, and out-and-out uncompromising Radical. I say, what d'ye think of a religious paper, the Catechism, or some such name?

Would Honeyman do as editor? I'm afraid it's all up with the poor cove at the chapel." And I parted with Mr. Sherrick, not a little edified by his talk, and greatly relieved as to Honeyman's fate. The tradesmen of Honeyman's body were appeased; and as for Mr. Moss, when he found that the curate had no effects, and must go before the Insolvent Court, unless Moss chose to take the composition which we were empowered to offer him, he too was brought to hear reason, and parted with the stamped paper on which was poor Honeyman's signature. Our negotiation had like to have come to an end by Clive's untimely indignation, who offered at one stage of the proceedings to pitch young Moss out of window; but nothing came of this most ungentlemanlike behaviour on Noocob's part, further than remonstrance and delay in the proceedings; and Honeyman preached a lovely sermon at Lady Whittlesea's the very next Sunday. He had made himself much liked in the sponging-house, and Mr.

Lazarus said, "if he hadn't a got out time enough, I'd a let him out for Sunday, and sent one of my men with him to show him the way ome, you know; for when a gentleman behaves as a gentleman to me, I behave as a gentleman to him."

Mrs. Ridley's account, and it was a long one, was paid without a single question, or the deduction of a farthing; but the Colonel rather sickened of Honeyman's expressions of rapturous grat.i.tude, and received his professions of mingled contrition and delight very coolly. "My boy,"

says the father to Clive, "you see to what straits debt brings a man, to tamper with truth to have to cheat the poor. Think of flying before a washerwoman, or humbling yourself to a tailor, or eating a poor man's children's bread!" Clive blushed, I thought, and looked rather confused.

"Oh, father," says he, "I--I'm afraid I owe some money too--not much; but about forty pound, five-and-twenty for cigars, and fifteen I borrowed of Pendennis, and--and I've been devilish annoyed about it all this time."

"You stupid boy," says the father "I knew about the cigars bill, and paid it last week. Anything I have is yours, you know. As long as there is a guinea, there is half for you. See that every shilling we owe is paid before--before a week is over. And go down and ask Binnie if I can see him in his study. I want to have some conversation with him." When Clive was gone away, he said to me in a very sweet voice, "In G.o.d's name, keep my boy out of debt when I am gone, Arthur. I shall return to India very soon."

"Very soon, sir! You have another year's leave," said I.

"Yes, but no allowances, you know; and this affair of Honeyman's has pretty nearly emptied the little purse I had set aside for European expenses. They have been very much heavier than I expected. As it is, I overdrew my account at my brother's, and have been obliged to draw money from my agents in Calcutta. A year sooner or later (unless two of our senior officers had died, when I should have got my promotion and full colonel's pay with it, and proposed to remain in this country)--a year sooner or later, what does it matter? Clive will go away and work at his art, and see the great schools of painting while I am absent. I thought at one time how pleasant it would be to accompany him. But l'homme propose, Pendennis. I fancy now a lad is not the better for being always tied to his parent's ap.r.o.n-string. You young fellows are too clever for me. I haven't learned your ideas or read your books. I feel myself very often an old damper in your company. I will go back, sir, where I have some friends, where I am somebody still. I know an honest face or two, white and brown, that will lighten up in the old regiment when they see Tom Newcome again. G.o.d bless you, Arthur. You young fellows in this country have such cold ways that we old ones hardly know how to like you at first. James Binnie and I, when we first came home, used to talk you over, and think you laughed at us. But you didn't, I know. G.o.d Almighty bless you, and send you a good wife, and make a good man of you. I have bought a watch, which I would like you to wear in remembrance of me and my boy, to whom you were so kind when you were boys together in the old Grey Friars." I took his hand, and uttered some incoherent words of affection and respect. Did not Thomas Newcome merit both from all who knew him?

His resolution being taken, our good Colonel began to make silent but effectual preparations for his coming departure. He was pleased during these last days of his stay to give me even more of his confidence than I had previously enjoyed, and was kind enough to say that he regarded me almost as a son of his own, and hoped I would act as elder brother and guardian to Clive. Ah! who is to guard the guardian? The younger brother had many n.o.bler qualities than belonged to the elder. The world had not hardened Clive, nor even succeeded in spoiling him. I perceive I am diverging from his history into that of another person, and will return to the subject proper of the book.

Colonel Newcome expressed himself as being particularly touched and pleased with his friend Binnie's conduct, now that the Colonel's departure was determined. "James is one of the most generous of men, Pendennis, and I am proud to be put under an obligation to him, and to tell it too. I hired this house, as you are aware, of our speculative friend Mr. Sherrick, and am answerable for the payment of the rent till the expiry of the lease. James has taken the matter off my hands entirely. The place is greatly too large for him, but he says that he likes it, and intends to stay, and that his sister and niece shall be his housekeepers. Clive" (here, perhaps, the speaker's voice drops a little)--"Clive will be the son of the house still, honest James says, and G.o.d bless him. James is richer than I thought by near a lakh of rupees--and here is a hint for you, Master Arthur. Mr. Binnie has declared to me in confidence that if his niece, Miss Rosey, shall marry a person of whom he approves, he will leave her a considerable part of his fortune."

The Colonel's confidant here said that his own arrangements were made in another quarter, to which statement the Colonel replied knowingly, "I thought so. A little bird has whispered to me the name of a certain Miss A. I knew her grandfather, an accommodating old gentleman, and I borrowed some money from him when I was a subaltern at Calcutta. I tell you in strict confidence, my dear young friend, that I hope and trust a certain young gentleman of your acquaintance may be induced to think how good and pretty and sweet-tempered a girl Miss Mackenzie is, and that she may be brought to like him. If you young men would marry in good time good and virtuous women--as I am sure--ahem!--Miss Amory is--half the temptations of your youth would be avoided. You would neither be dissolute, has many of you seem to me, or cold and selfish, which are worse vices still. And my prayer is, that my Clive may cast anchor early out of the reach of temptation, and mate with some such kind girl as Binnie's niece. When I first came home I formed other plans for him which could not be brought to a successful issue; and knowing his ardent disposition, and having kept an eye on the young rogue's conduct, I tremble lest some mischance with a woman should befall him, and long to have him out of danger."

So the kind scheme of the two elders was, that their young ones should marry and be happy ever after, like the Prince and Princess of the Fairy Tale: and dear Mrs. Mackenzie (have I said that at the commencement of her visit to her brother she made almost open love to the Colonel?), dear Mrs. Mack was content to forgo her own chances so that her darling Rosey might be happy. We used to laugh and say, that as soon as Clive's father was gone, Josey would be sent for to join Rosey. But little Josey being under her grandmother's sole influence took most gratifying and serious turn; wrote letters, in which she questioned the morality of operas, Towers of London, and waxworks; and, before a year was out, married Elder Bogie, of Mr. M'Craw's church.

Presently was to be read in the Morning Post an advertis.e.m.e.nt of the sale of three horses (the description and pedigree following), "the property of an officer returning to India. Apply to the groom, at the stables, 150 Fitzroy Square."

The Court of Directors invited Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome to an entertainment given to Major-General Sir Ralph Spurrier, K.C.B., appointed Commander-in-Chief at Madras. Clive was asked to this dinner too, "and the governor's health was drunk, sir," Clive said, "after dinner, and the dear old fellow made such a good speech, in returning thanks!"

He, Clive, and I made a pilgrimage to Grey Friars, and had the Green to ourselves, it being the Bartlemytide vacation, and the boys all away.

One of the good old Poor Brothers whom we both recollected accompanied us round the place; and we sate for a while in Captain Scarsdale's little room (he had been a Peninsular officer, who had sold out, and was fain in his old age to retire into this calm retreat). And we talked, as old schoolmates and lovers talk, about subjects interesting to schoolmates and lovers only.

One by one the Colonel took leave of his friends, young and old; ran down to Newcome, and gave Mrs. Mason a parting benediction; slept a night at Tom Smith's, and pa.s.sed a day with Jack Brown; went to all the boys' and girls' schools where his little proteges were, so as to be able to take the very last and most authentic account of the young folks to their parents in India; spent a week at Marble Hill, and shot partridges there, but for which entertainment, Clive said, the place would have been intolerable; and thence proceeded to Brighton to pa.s.s a little time with good Miss Honeyman. As for Sir Brian's family, when Parliament broke up, of course, they did not stay in town. Barnes, of course, had part of a moor in Scotland, whither his uncle and cousin did not follow him. The rest went abroad. Sir Brian wanted the waters of Aix-la-Chapelle. The brothers parted very good friends; Lady Anne, and all the young people, heartily wished him farewell. I believe Sir Brian even accompanied the Colonel downstairs from the drawing-room, in Park Lane, and actually came out and saw his brother into his cab (just as he would accompany old Lady Bagges when she came to look at her account at the bank, from the parlour to her carriage). But as for Ethel, she was not going to be put off with this sort of parting and the next morning a cab dashed up to Fitzroy Square, and a veiled lady came out thence, and was closeted with Colonel Newcome for five minutes, and when he led her back to the carriage there were tears in his eyes.

Mrs. Mackenzie joked about the transaction (having watched it from the dining-room windows), and asked the Colonel who his sweetheart was?

Newcome replied very sternly, that he hoped no one would ever speak lightly of that young lady, whom he loved as his own daughter; and I thought Rosey looked vexed at the praises thus bestowed. This was the day before we all went down to Brighton. Miss Honeyman's lodgings were taken for Mr. Binnie and his ladies. Clive and her dearest Colonel had apartments next door. Charles Honeyman came dawn and preached one of his very best sermons. Fred Bayham was there, and looked particularly grand and n.o.ble on the pier and the cliff. I am inclined to think he had had some explanation with Thomas Newcome, which had placed F. B. in a state of at least temporary prosperity. Whom did he not benefit whom he knew, and what eye that saw him did not bless him? F. B. was greatly affected at Charles's sermon, of which our party of course could see the allusions. Tears actually rolled down his brown cheeks; for Fred was a man very easily moved, and, as it were, a softened sinner. Little Rosey and her mother sobbed audibly, greatly to the surprise of stout old Miss Honeyman, who had no idea of such watery exhibitions, and to the discomfiture of poor Newcome, who was annoyed to have his praises even hinted in that sacred edifice. Good Mr. James Binnie came for once to church; and, however variously their feelings might be exhibited or, repressed, I think there was not one of the little circle there a.s.sembled who did not bring to the place a humble prayer and a gentle heart. It was the last Sabbath-bell our dear friend was to hear for many a day on his native sh.o.r.e. The great sea washed the beach as we came out, blue with the reflection of the skies, and its innumerable waves crested with sunshine. I see the good man and his boy yet clinging to him, as they pace together by the sh.o.r.e.

The Colonel was very much pleased by a visit from Mr. Ridley and the communication which he made (my Lord Todmorden has a mansion and park in Suss.e.x, whence Mr. Ridley came to pay his duty to Colonel Newcome). He said he "never could forget the kindness with which the Colonel have a treated him. His lordship have taken a young man, which Mr. Ridley had brought him up under his own eye, and can answer for him, Mr. R. says, with impunity; and which he is to be his lordship's own man for the future. And his lordship have appointed me his steward, and having, as he always hev been, been most liberal in point of sellary. And me and Mrs. Ridley was thinking, sir, most respectfully, with regard to our son, Mr. John James Ridley--as good and honest a young man, which I am proud to say it, that if Mr. Clive goes abroad we should be most proud and happy if John James went with him. And the money which you have paid us so handsome, Colonel, he shall have it; which it was the excellent ideer of Miss Cann; and my lord have ordered a pictur of John James in the most libral manner, and have asked my son to dinner, sir, at his lordship's own table, which I have faithfully served him five-and-thirty years." Ridley's voice fairly broke down at this part of his speech, which evidently was a studied composition, and he uttered no more of it, for the Colonel cordially shook him by the hand, and Clive jumped up clapping his, and saying that it was the greatest wish of his heart that J. J. and he should be companions in France and Italy. "But I did not like to ask my dear old father," he said, "who has had so many calls on his purse, and besides, I knew that J. J. was too independent to come as my follower."

The Colonel's berth has been duly secured ere now. This time he makes the overland journey; and his pa.s.sage is to Alexandria, taken in one of the n.o.ble ships of the Peninsular and Oriental Company. His kit is as simple as a subaltern's; I believe, but for Clive's friendly compulsion, he would have carried back no other than the old uniform which has served him for so many years. Clive and his father travelled to Southampton together by themselves. F. B. and I took the Southampton coach: we had asked leave to see the last of him, and say a "G.o.d bless you" to our dear old friend. So the day came when the vessel was to sail. We saw his cabin, and witnessed all the bustle and stir on board the good ship on a day of departure. Our thoughts, however, were fixed but on one person--the case, no doubt, with hundreds more on such a day. There was many a group of friends closing wistfully together on the sunny deck, and saying the last words of blessing and farewell. The bustle of the ship pa.s.ses dimly round about them; the hurrying noise of crew and officers running on their duty; the tramp and song of the men at the capstan-bars; the bells ringing, as the hour for departure comes nearer and nearer, as mother and son, father and daughter, husband and wife, hold hands yet for a little while. We saw Clive and his father talking together by the wheel. Then they went below; and a pa.s.senger, her husband, asked me to give my arm to an almost fainting lady, and to lead her off the ship. Bayham followed us, carrying their two children in his arms, as the husband turned away and walked aft. The last bell was ringing, and they were crying, "Now for the sh.o.r.e." The whole ship had begun to throb ere this, and its great wheels to beat the water, and the chimneys had flung out their black signals for sailing. We were as yet close on the dock, and we saw Clive coming up from below, looking very pale; the plank was drawn after him as he stepped on land.

Then, with three great cheers from the dock, and from the crew in the bows, and from the pa.s.sengers on the quarter-deck, the n.o.ble ship strikes the first stroke of her destined race, and swims away towards the ocean. "There he is, there he is," shouts Fred Bayham, waving his hat. "G.o.d bless him, G.o.d bless him!" I scarce perceived at the ship's side, beckoning an adieu, our dear old friend, when the lady, whose husband had bidden me to lead her away from the ship, fainted in my arms. Poor soul! Her, too, has fate stricken. Ah, pangs of hearts torn asunder, pa.s.sionate regrets, cruel, cruel partings! Shall you not end one day, ere many years; when the tears shall be wiped from all eyes, and there shall be neither sorrow nor pain?

CHAPTER XXVII. Youth and Sunshine

Although Thomas Newcome was gone back to India in search of more money, finding that he could not live upon his income at home, he was nevertheless rather a wealthy man; and at the moment of his departure from Europe had two lakhs of rupees invested in various Indian securities. "A thousand a year," he thought, "more, added to the interest accruing from my two lakhs, will enable us to live very comfortably at home. I can give Clive ten thousand pounds when he marries, and five hundred a year out of my allowances. If he gets a wife with some money, they may have every enjoyment of life; and as for his pictures, he can paint just as few or as many of those as he pleases."

Newcome did not seem seriously to believe that his son would live by painting pictures, but considered Clive as a young prince who chose to amuse himself with painting. The Muse of Painting is a lady whose social station is not altogether recognised with us as yet. The polite world permits a gentleman to amuse himself with her; but to take her for better or for worse! forsake all other chances and cleave unto her! to a.s.sume her name! Many a respectable person would be as much shocked at the notion, as if his son had married an opera-dancer.

Newcome left a hundred a year in England, of which the princ.i.p.al sum was to be transferred to his boy as soon as he came of age. He endowed Clive further with a considerable annual sum, which his London bankers would pay: "And if these are not enough," says he kindly, "you must draw upon my agents, Messrs. Frank and Merryweather at Calcutta, who will receive your signature just as if it was mine." Before going away, he introduced Clive to F. and M.'s corresponding London house, Jolly and Baines, Fog Court--leading out of Leadenhall--Mr. Jolly, a myth as regarded the firm, now married to Lady Julia Jolly--a Park in Kent--evangelical interest--great at Exeter Hall meetings--knew Clive's grandmother--that is, Mrs. Newcome, a most admirable woman. Baines represents a house in the Regent's Park, with an emigrative tendency towards Belgravia--musical daughters--Herr Moscheles, Bened.i.c.k, Ella,--Osborne, constantly at dinner-sonatas in P flat (op. 936), composed and dedicated to Miss Euphemia Baines, by her most obliged, most obedient servant, Ferdinando Blitz. Baines hopes that his young friend will come constantly to York Terrace, where the most girls will be happy to see him; and mentions at home a singular whim of Colonel Newcome's, who can give his son twelve or fifteen hundred a year, and makes an artist of him. Euphemia and Flora adore artists; they feel quite interested about this young man. "He was scribbling caricatures all the time I was talking with his father in my parlour," says Mr. Baines, and produces a sketch of an orange-woman near the Bank, who had struck Clive's eyes, and been transferred to the blotting-paper in Fog Court. "He needn't do anything," said good-natured Mr. Baines. "I guess all the pictures he'll paint won't sell for much."

"Is he fond of music, papa?" asks Miss. "What a pity he had not come to our last evening; and now the season is over!"

"And Mr. Newcome is going out of town. He came to me, to-day for circular notes--says he's going through Switzerland and into Italy--lives in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square. Queer place, ain't it?

Put his name down in your book, and ask him to dinner next season."

Before Clive went away, he had an apparatus of easels, sketching-stools, umbrellas, and painting-boxes, the most elaborate and beautiful that Messrs. Soap and Isaac could supply. It made J. J.'s eyes glisten to see those lovely gimcracks of art; those smooth mill-boards, those slab-tinted sketching-blocks, and glistening rows of colour-tubes lying in their boxes, which seemed to cry, "Come, squeeze me." If painting-boxes made painters, if sketching-stools would but enable one to sketch, surely I would hasten this very instant to Messrs. Soap and Isaac! but, alas! these pretty toys no more make artists than cowls make monks.

As a proof that Clive did intend to practise his profession, and to live by it too, at this time he took four sporting sketches to a printseller in the Haymarket, and disposed of them at the rate of seven shillings and sixpence per sketch. His exultation at receiving a sovereign and half a sovereign from Mr. Jones was boundless. "I can do half a dozen of these things easily in a morning," he says. "Two guineas a day is twelve guineas--say ten guineas a week, for I won't work on Sundays, and may take a holiday in the week besides. Ten guineas a week is five hundred a year. That is pretty nearly as much money as I shall want, and I need not draw the dear old governor's allowance at all." He wrote an ardent letter, full of happiness and affection, to the kind father, which he shall find a month after he has arrived in India, and read to his friends in Calcutta and Barrackpore. Clive invited many of his artist friends to a grand feast in honour of the thirty shillings. The King's Arms, Kensington, was the hotel selected (tavern beloved of artists for many score years!). Gandish was there, and the Gandis.h.i.tes, and some chosen spirits from the Life Academy, Clipstone Street, and J. J. was vice-president, with Fred Bayham by his side, to make the speeches and carve the mutton; and I promise you many a merry song was sung, and many a health drunk in flowing b.u.mpers; and as jolly a party was a.s.sembled as any London contained that day. The beau-monde had quitted it; the Park was empty as we crossed it; and the leaves of Kensington Gardens had begun to fall, dying after the fatigues of a London season. We sang all the way home through Knightsbridge and by the Park railings, and the Covent Garden carters halting at the Half-way House were astonished at our choruses. There is no half-way house now; no merry chorus at midnight.

Then Clive and J. J. took the steamboat to Antwerp; and those who love pictures may imagine how the two young men rejoiced in one of the most picturesque cities of the world; where they went back straightway into the sixteenth century; where the inn at which they stayed (delightful old Grand Laboureur, thine ancient walls are levelled! thy comfortable hospitalities exist no more!) seemed such a hostelry as that where Quentin Durward first saw his sweetheart; where knights of Velasquez or burgomasters of Rubens seemed to look from the windows of the tall-gabled houses and the quaint porches; where the Bourse still stood, the Bourse of three hundred years ago, and you had but to supply figures with beards and ruffs, and rapiers and trunk-hose, to make the picture complete; where to be awakened by the carillon of the bells was to waken to the most delightful sense of life and happiness; where nuns, actual nuns, walked the streets, and every figure in the Place de Meir, and every devotee at church, kneeling and draped in black, or entering the confessional (actually the confessional!), was a delightful subject for the new sketchbook. Had Clive drawn as much everywhere as at Antwerp, Messrs. Soap and Isaac might have made a little income by supplying him with materials.

After Antwerp, Clive's correspondent gets a letter dated from the Hotel de Suede at Brussels, which contains an elaborate eulogy of the cookery and comfort of that hotel, where the wines, according to the writer's opinion, are unmatched almost in Europe. And this is followed by a description of Waterloo, and a sketch of Hougoumont, in which J. J. is represented running away in the character of a French grenadier, Clive pursuing him in the lifeguard's habit, and mounted on a thundering charger.

Next follows a letter from Bonn. Verses about Drachenfels of a not very superior style of versification; an account of Crichton, an old Grey Friars man, who has become a student at the university; of a commerz, a drunken bout, and a students' duel at Bonn. "And whom should I find here," says Mr. Clive, "but Aunt Anne, Ethel, Miss Quigley, and the little ones, the whole detachment under the command of Kuhn? Uncle Brian is staying at Aix. He is recovered from his attack. And, upon my conscience, I think my pretty cousin looks prettier every day.

"When they are not in London," Clive goes on to write, "or I sometimes think when Barnes or old Lady Kew are not looking over them, they are quite different. You know how cold they have latterly seemed to us, and how their conduct annoyed my dear old father. Nothing can be kinder than their behaviour since we have met. It was on the little hill at G.o.desberg: J. J. and I were mounting to the ruin, followed by the beggars who waylay you, and have taken the place of the other robbers who used to live there, when there came a procession of donkeys down the steep, and I heard a little voice cry, 'Hullo! it's Clive! hooray, Clive!' and an a.s.s came pattering down the declivity, with a little pair of white trousers at an immensely wide angle over the donkey's back, and behold there was little Alfred grinning with all his might.

"He turned his beast and was for galloping up the hill again, I suppose to inform his relations; but the donkey refused with many kicks, one of which sent Alfred plunging amongst the stones, and we were rubbing him down just as the rest of the party came upon us. Miss Quigley looked very grim on an old white pony; my aunt was on a black horse that might have turned grey, he is so old. Then come two donkeysful of children, with Kuhn as supercargo; then Ethel on donkey-back, too, with a bunch of wildflowers in her hand, a great straw hat with a crimson ribbon, a white muslin jacket, you know, bound at the waist with a ribbon of the first, and a dark skirt, with a shawl round her feet which Kuhn had arranged. As she stopped, the donkey fell to cropping greens in the hedge; the trees there chequered her white dress and face with shadow.

Her eyes, hair, and forehead were in shadow too--but the light was all upon her right cheek: upon her shoulder down to her arm, which was of a warmer white, and on the bunch of flowers which she held, blue, yellow, and red poppies, and so forth.

"J. J. says, 'I think the birds began to sing louder when she came.' We have both agreed that she is the handsomest woman in England. It's not her form merely, which is certainly as yet too thin and a little angular--it is her colour. I do not care for woman or picture without colour. O ye carnations! O ye lilia mista rosis! O such black hair and solemn eyebrows! It seems to me the roses and carnations have bloomed again since we saw them last in London, when they were drooping from the exposure to night air, candle-light, and heated ballrooms.

"Here I was in the midst of a regiment of donkeys, bearing a crowd of relations; J. J. standing modestly in the background--beggars completing the group, and Kuhn ruling over them with voice and gesture, oaths and whip. Throw in the Rhine in the distance flashing by the Seven Mountains--but mind and make Ethel the princ.i.p.al figure: if you make her like, she certainly will be--and other lights will be only minor fires.

You may paint her form, but you can't paint her colour; that is what beats us in nature. A line must come right; you can force that into its place, but you can't compel the circ.u.mambient air. There is no yellow I know of will make sunshine, and no blue that is a bit like sky. And so with pictures: I think you only get signs of colour, and formulas to stand for it. That brick-dust which we agree to receive as representing a blush, look at it--can you say it is in the least like the blush which flickers and varies as it sweeps over the down of the cheek--as you see sunshine playing over a meadow? Look into it and see what a variety of delicate blooms there are! a mult.i.tude of flowerets twining into one tint! We may break our colour-pots and strive after the line alone: that is palpable and we can grasp it--the other is impossible and beyond us." Which sentiment I here set down, not on account of its worth (and I think it is contradicted--as well as a.s.serted--in more than one of the letters I subsequently had from Mr. Clive, but it may serve to show the ardent and impulsive disposition of this youth), by whom all beauties of art and nature, animate or inanimate (the former especially), were welcomed with a gusto and delight whereof colder temperaments are incapable. The view of a fine landscape, a fine picture, a handsome woman, would make this harmless young sensualist tipsy with pleasure. He seemed to derive an actual hilarity and intoxication as his eye drank in these sights; and, though it was his maxim that all dinners were good, and he could eat bread and cheese and drink small beer with perfect good-humour, I believe that he found a certain pleasure in a bottle of claret, which most men's systems were incapable of feeling.

This springtime of youth is the season of letter-writing. A lad in high health and spirits, the blood running briskly in his young veins, and the world, and life, and nature bright and welcome to him, looks out, perforce, for some companion to whom he may impart his sense of the pleasure which he enjoys, and which were not complete unless a friend were by to share it. I was the person most convenient for the young fellow's purpose; he was pleased to confer upon me the t.i.tle of friend en t.i.tre, and confidant in particular; to endow the confidant in question with a number of virtues and excellences which existed very likely only in the lad's imagination; to lament that the confidant had no sister whom he, Clive, might marry out of hand; and to make me a thousand simple protests of affection and admiration, which are noted here as signs of the young man's character, by no means as proofs of the goodness of mine. The books given to the present biographer by "his affectionate friend, Clive Newcome," still bear on the t.i.tlepages the marks of that boyish hand and youthful fervour. He had a copy of Walter Lorraine bound and gilt with such splendour as made the author blush for his performance, which has since been seen at the bookstalls at a price suited to the very humblest purses. He fired up and fought a newspaper critic (whom Clive met at the Haunt one night) who had dared to write an article in which that work was slighted; and if, in the course of nature, his friendship has outlived that rapturous period, the kindness of the two old friends, I hope, is not the less because it is no longer romantic, and the days of white vellum and gilt edges have pa.s.sed away.

From the abundance of the letters which the affectionate young fellow now wrote, the ensuing portion of his youthful history is compiled. It may serve to recall pa.s.sages of their early days to such of his seniors as occasionally turn over the leaves of a novel; and in the story of his faults, indiscretions, pa.s.sions, and actions, young readers may be reminded of their own.

Now that the old Countess, and perhaps Barnes, were away, the barrier between Clive and this family seemed to be withdrawn. The young folks who loved him were free to see him as often as he would come. They were going to Baden: would he come too? Baden was on the road to Switzerland, he might journey to Strasbourg, Basle, and so on. Clive was glad enough to go with his cousins, and travel in the orbit of such a lovely girl as Ethel Newcome. J. J. performed the second part always when Clive was present: and so they all travelled to Coblentz, Mayence, and Frankfort together, making the journey which everybody knows, and sketching the mountains and castles we all of us have sketched. Ethel's beauty made all the pa.s.sengers on all the steamers look round and admire. Clive was proud of being in the suite of such a lovely person. The family travelled with a pair of those carriages which used to thunder along the Continental roads a dozen years since, and from interior, box, and rumble discharge a dozen English people at hotel gates.

The journey is all sunshine and pleasure and novelty: the circular notes with which Mr. Baines of Fog Court has supplied Clive Newcome, Esquire, enabled that young gentleman to travel with great ease and comfort. He has not yet ventured upon engaging a valet-de-chambre, it being agreed between him and J. J. that two travelling artists have no right to such an aristocratic appendage; but he has bought a snug little britzska at Frankfort (the youth has very polite tastes, is already a connoisseur in wine, and has no scruple in ordering the best at the hotels), and the britzska travels in company with Lady Anne's caravan, either in its wake so as to be out of reach of the dust, or more frequently ahead of that enormous vehicle and its tender, in which come the children and the governess of Lady Anne Newcome, guarded by a huge and melancholy London footman, who beholds Rhine and Neckar, valley and mountain, village and ruin, with a like dismal composure. Little Alfred and little Egbert are by no means sorry to escape from Miss Quigley and the tender, and for a stage ride or two in Clive's britzska. The little girls cry sometimes to be admitted to that privilege. I dare say Ethel would like very well to quit her place in the caravan, where she sits, circ.u.mvented by mamma's dogs, and books, bags, dressing-boxes, and gimcrack cases, without which apparatus some English ladies of condition cannot travel; but Miss Ethel is grown up, she is out, and has been presented at Court, and is a person of too great dignity now to sit anywhere but in the place of state in the chariot corner. I like to think, for my part, of the gallant young fellow taking his pleasure and enjoying his holiday, and few sights are more pleasant than to watch a happy, manly English youth, free-handed and generous-hearted, content and good-humour shining in his honest face, pleased and pleasing, eager, active, and thankful for services, and exercising bravely his n.o.ble youthful privilege to be happy and to enjoy. Sing, cheery spirit, whilst the spring lasts; bloom whilst the sun shines, kindly flowers of youth! You shall be none the worse to-morrow for having been happy to-day, if the day brings no action to shame it. As for J. J., he too had his share of enjoyment; the charming scenes around him did not escape his bright eye, he absorbed pleasure in his silent way, he was up with the sunrise always, and at work with his eyes and his heart if not with his hands. A beautiful object too is such a one to contemplate, a pure virgin soul, a creature gentle, pious, and full of love, endowed with sweet gifts, humble and timid; but for truth's and justice's sake inflexible, thankful to G.o.d and man, fond, patient, and faithful. Clive was still his hero as ever, his patron, his splendid young prince and chieftain. Who was so brave, who was so handsome, generous, witty as Clive? To hear Clive sing, as the lad would whilst they were seated at their work, or driving along on this happy journey, through fair landscapes in the sunshine, gave J. J.

the keenest pleasure; his wit was a little slow, but he would laugh with his eyes at Clive's sallies, or ponder over them and explode with laughter presently, giving a new source of amus.e.m.e.nt to these merry travellers, and little Alfred would laugh at J. J.'s laughing; and so, with a hundred harmless jokes to enliven, and the ever-changing, ever-charming smiles of nature to cheer and accompany it, the happy day's journey would come to an end.

So they travelled by the accustomed route to the prettiest town of all places where Pleasure has set up her tents; and where the gay, the melancholy, the idle or occupied, grave or haughty, come for amus.e.m.e.nt, or business, or relaxation; where London beauties, having danced and flirted all the season, may dance and flirt a little more; where well-dressed rogues from all quarters of the world a.s.semble; where I have seen severe London lawyers, forgetting their wigs and the Temple, trying their luck against fortune and M. Benazet; where wistful schemers conspire and p.r.i.c.k cards down, and deeply meditate the infallible coup; and try it, and lose it, and borrow a hundred francs to go home; where even virtuous British ladies venture their little stakes, and draw up their winnings with trembling rakes, by the side of ladies who are not virtuous at all, no, not even by name; where young prodigals break the bank sometimes, and carry plunder out of a place which Hercules himself could scarcely compel; where you meet wonderful countesses and princesses, whose husbands are almost always absent on their vast estates--in Italy, Spain, Piedmont--who knows where their lordships'

possessions are?--while trains of suitors surround those wandering Penelopes their n.o.ble wives; Russian Boyars, Spanish Grandees of the Order of the Fleece, Counts of France, and Princes Polish and Italian innumerable, who perfume the gilded halls with their tobacco-smoke, and swear in all languages against the black and the red. The famous English monosyllable by which things, persons, luck, even eyes, are devoted to the infernal G.o.ds, we may be sure is not wanting in that Babel. Where does one not hear it? "D---- the luck," says Lord Kew, as the croupier sweeps off his lordship's rouleaux. "D---- the luck," says Brown the bagman, who has been backing his lordship with five-franc pieces. "Ah, body of Bacchus!" says Count Felice, whom we all remember a courier.

"Ah, sacre coup," cries M. le Vicomte de Florac, as his last louis parts company from him--each cursing in his native tongue. Oh, sweet chorus!

That Lord Kew should be at Baden is no wonder. If you heard of him at the Finish, or at Buckingham Palace ball, or in a watch-house, or at the Third Cataract, or at a Newmarket meeting, you would not be surprised.

He goes everywhere; does everything with all his might; knows everybody.

Last week he won who knows how many thousand louis from the bank (it appears Brown has chosen one of the unlucky days to back his lordship).

He will eat his supper as gaily after a great victory as after a signal defeat; and we know that to win with magnanimity requires much more constancy than to lose. His sleep will not be disturbed by one event or the other. He will play skittles all the morning with perfect contentment, romp with children in the forenoon (he is the friend of half the children in the place), or he will cheerfully leave the green table and all the risk and excitement there, to take a hand at sixpenny whist with General Fogey, or to give the six Miss Fogeys a turn each in the ballroom. From H.R.H. the Prince Royal of ----, who is the greatest guest at Baden, down to Brown the bagman, who does not consider himself the smallest, Lord Kew is hail fellow with everybody, and has a kind word from and for all.